LDS World: Marriage is ordained of God

Comments

You're wrong in your assumption that I want to
believe only what science can give me and forget about religion. I've explored
religion thoroughly. I've explored science thoroughly. I've explored many
different beliefs including so-called non-belief thoroughly. I've explored
alternative beliefs thoroughly. I've discussed different beliefs with various
people. Have you? Or have you just locked yourself into your beliefs and never
explored others. If I could find religion(s) believeable and probable I would be
happy to embrace it, but I can only base that decision on my own explorations,
knowledge, and experience. My explorations have found religious belief lacking
in credibility. A person has to base their beliefs on something whether it's
religious text, need, feeling, upbringing, experience and so forth. I have to
base my beliefs my current knowledge of science that although incomplete is
progressing. I know that science is not the answer to everything, but than again
neither is religious belief. I don't believe we have ALL the answers. Religion
itself doesn't speak to me as truth because I find modern natural explanations
to be more probable than explanations from the_past.

Skin color most
like is a genetically evolved trait!

Bill in NebraskaMaryville, MO

Sept. 13, 2011 9:34 p.m.

For one you misread the quotes and what religion teaches. I know what many say
but I also see things completely different than what is black and white. To
Joggle, actually you are the one that is inflexible. You want to believe only
what science can give you and forget about religion. I take what science gives
me but I also know and have faith in a higher being. Therefore, in many things
I'm more open to things than you will ever know. Science is not the answer to
everything. As one man once said "some things said by people is ignorant
especially when it comes to the color of their skin." White and black
doesn't necessarilly mention why the skin differs. We do know that the curse of
Cain was a blackness of color. Does that mean all blacks are punished because
of it, NO. We also read that if a man repents and becomes baptized his skin
turns white, the answer to that is NO. What then does it mean? It means that
your sins upon repentance become white and pure as the driven snow. By the way,
science says that only because they have no other answer.

JoggleClearfield, UT

Sept. 13, 2011 5:32 p.m.

@Bill in Nebraska

What I said may be irrelevant only to you and to
those who think like you, but for many it is not. I'm sure you have convinced
yourself that all other information that doesn't agree with your sensibilities
is wrong no matter how much evidence their is for it or how much more probable
it is. Typical inflexibility to new information by someone stuck in the past!
You are welcome to remain there!

marxistSalt Lake City, UT

Sept. 13, 2011 11:22 a.m.

Well fine, Bill, but consider a very simple contrast of science vs religious
dogma. I have a "white" skin being the descendent of Swedes and
Danes. Religious doctrine says I have a white skin because I am of a chosen
lineage. Science says I have a white skin because of natural selection so as to
get adequate quantities of vitamin D at high latitudes (among other factors).
Religious dogma says Africans are black because they are "cursed."
Science says they are black because natural selection dictated they remain black
to protect their skins in the equatorial region. Which do you believe?

Bill in NebraskaMaryville, MO

Sept. 13, 2011 6:48 a.m.

To marxist: I can ignore it because modern biology is just that but it is a
theory, not FACT. We don't know a lot of things especially the age of the earth
or what transpired. We do know that it took 6 creative periods to create the
Earth. We don't know what it took to do so. Everything is based on a theory.
Also, carbon dating has been found to be unreliable at best and science
continues to challenge the carbon dating. We don't know everything and science
keeps trying to put things into a nutshell and that isn't so.

Again,
I do not put a lot of trust into what a man can come up with. What one
scientist says has been disputed by another so yes I can ignore that which I
know to be true and that is that Adam and Eve were the first parents and first
humans on Earth. This is where science and the Bible may differ. I will hold
to the word of God over science.

marxistSalt Lake City, UT

Sept. 12, 2011 11:10 p.m.

"Therefore, Adam and Eve were the FIRST humans on earth..." But
modern biology says this simply was not the case, that humans came out of Africa
in several waves, that the earth is a good deal older that just 6,000 years,
that the aboriginal American population is mostly Asian, etc. My question to
you Bill, is this: how can you ignore modern biology so completely? You must
simply erase it from your consciousness. BTW, I'm all for marriage and keeping
marital vows.

Bill in NebraskaMaryville, MO

Sept. 12, 2011 8:03 p.m.

Joggle: All of what you say is irrelevant if we take the Bible for what it is
which is the word of God. Therefore, Adam and Eve were the FIRST humans on
earth and lived in the Garden of Eden. They were married in the garden with the
commandment to replinish the earth. Of such, all humans derive directly from
them. Since, we know through the Bible and modern day revelation that Adam and
Eve were taught the plan of salvation, which was taught to all of their
children. This is why Cain is not forgiven because he REBELLED openly against
our Father in Heaven. He is the son of perdition. Therefore, since marriage
was ordained by God from the beginning of man, everything else falls into place.
Each of us during the millienium will have our ancesrty traced back to Adam and
Eve, as we are all their sons and daughters. We are also spiritual sons and
daughters of Our Heavenly Father, therefore we are all brothers and sisters.
Therefore, your case is basically irrelevant.

JoggleClearfield, UT

Sept. 12, 2011 2:41 p.m.

Marriage was common if not universal throughout Europe, North Africa and the
Middle East centuries before the Hebrews or Christians made any impression on
the world stage. The Egyptians, Greeks and Roman classical civilizations all had
notions of marriage and weddings long before they had any dealings with the
ancient Hebrews, who were of course very much into polygamous marriages,
courtesans and masters taking sexual advantage of their female slaves so hardly
the greatest advertisements for God's monopoly on morality, monogamy and
concerns with sexual abstinence and propriety. It is my opinion that if a person
doesn't believe God made the world because gods didn't/don't exist it is rather
naive to believe that somebody else's god somehow ordained marriage. Judging
marriage should be done on the merits of the INSTITUTION of marriage itself, but
not according to an attitude toward a religious agency that people mistakenly
credit with the practice and institution.

Marriage today is mostly
about legal rights and celebration of the couple's commitment. If you think it's
ordained by the "God" you believe in that's well and good, but to deny
marriage to others based on YOUR beliefs is wrong.

ksampowFarr West, Utah

Sept. 12, 2011 1:54 p.m.

Vanka: You seem to ignore waht you might find disagreeable. There are MANY
scriptural references against homosexuality:

bring them out unto us,
that we may know them, Gen. 19:5Thou shalt not lie with mankind it is
abomination, Lev. 18:22 (Lev. 20:13).There shall be no sodomite of the
sons of Israel, Deut. 23:17declare their sin as Sodom, Isa. 3:9men
burned in their lust one toward another, Rom. 1:27nor abusers of
themselves with mankind, 1 Cor. 6:9them that defile themselves with
mankind, 1 Tim. 1:10as Sodom and Gomorrha going after strange flesh, Jude
1:7

The multiply command means more when there are 2 people on the
earth then when there are 7 billion, especially when the earth does not have the
resources to support 7 billion people if they lived like Americans do.

Secondly, gay people aren't going to have kids whether married or single.

"the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men, save he
shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he
commandeth them."

Save he shall prepare a way... oh, so
in-vitro, adoption, and surrogate motherhood are ways to accomplish the thing
which is commanded.

VankaProvo, UT

Sept. 12, 2011 10:04 a.m.

Deuce and others,

No, you miss the point. If you go solely by what is
in scripture, you are already in the mindset of being commanded in all things.
Scripture contains the commands of god (so believers tell me). But scripture
does NOT contain all that is good. If it did, humans would be being
"compelled in all things", which is contrary to LDS notions of agency
as well as god's word.

To paraphrase a Constitutional concept,
D&C 58:26-29 is like The 9th Amendment, saying, essentially, "The
enumeration in the scriptures of certain goods and virtues shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others accomplished by people through their own
free will.

Nowhere in scripture is same sex marriage forbidden. Yes,
"husband-wife marriage" and "multiplying" is commanded, but
that does not exclude or discount the good of same sex marriage, anymore than
that same command excludes or discounts the goodness of infertile marriages, or
the marriages of older people.

As I have pointed out before, in LDS
theology, "multiply and replenish" is not the first
"commandment" (moral virtue). Prior to that is "it is not good
for man to be alone."

The DeuceLivermore, CA

Sept. 11, 2011 9:33 p.m.

To: Vanka | 7:24 a.m. Sept. 11, 2011 Provo, UT - Since you have brought up the
use of scriptural reference, it seems that the scriptures outlined that marriage
is between a man and a woman. It seems that there is no need for further
clarification, if you are basing your aurgument on the scriptures as a
reference. You might reconsider your aurgument. While I am not debating the
issue of same-sex marriage, I think that the scriptural reference that marriage
is between a man and a woman is clear enough that there is no confusion as to
what was meant. You may want to take another approach on this one.

Mel50Nashville, TN

Sept. 11, 2011 9:26 p.m.

When God created Adam and Eve, the first commandment He gave them was "be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Then in 1 Nephi 3:7
Nephi says he knows that "the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children
of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing
which he commandeth them." SS couples can't "multiply and replenish
the earth", so they can't obey that commandment. If God was okay with SS
marriage, He would have prepared a way for two men to reproduce and have
children, or two women. So since it is physically impossible for SS couples to
reproduce, that tells me all I need to know about God's will in the matter.

The common response to this is for SS proponents to say that if marriage
is just for reproduction, should infertile people or those who choose not to
have children be forbidden to marry? But the thing is - it doesn't matter how
healthy a SS couple is, or how great their desire to have children - they can't
do it without involving the opposite sex. I think Heavenly Father is pretty
clear on that.

ulvegaardMedical Lake, Washington

Sept. 11, 2011 7:13 p.m.

RE: VANKA,

You're so right. In the mean time we'll [my family and I]
just follow the counsel that was issued by the First Presidency in the
"Proclamation on the Family" that marriage is ordained of God and that
such consists of a union between a man and a woman. In so doing, I don't have
to wait to be commanded in all things. I try to do good without waiting to be
told to do so and I try to follow the dictates of my own conscience which
directs me to follow those I sustain as living prophets.

I do not
bash or argue with those who hold alternate viewpoints and I appreciate it when
I am allowed to live according to my convictions without ridicule.

VankaProvo, UT

Sept. 11, 2011 7:24 a.m.

"Marriage is ordained of God."

OK, we get that. God
ordained and commanded his followers to marry, and to multiply and replenish the
earth.

Many Religious folks are also fond of believing that "it
is not meet that I (God) should command in all things, for he that is compelled
in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; ...men should be
anxiously engaged in a good cause and do many things of their own free
will..."

Many people see the good that can come from same sex
marriage. Caring relationships stabilized, loving homes provided for children,
the individual and societal benefits of marriage extended to hundreds of
thousands of US citizens.

We don't have to wait for God to
"ordain" or "command" something good before we take action.
And the absence of God's explicit "ordaining" of same sex marriage is
no more a condemnation of it than the absence of an explicit scriptural command
makes giving blood evil.